


The Ties that Bind

by Viridian5



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon - Manga, Introspection, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5906926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The closer they get, the harder it becomes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties that Bind

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for “Even a Worm.” Takes place between _Saiyuki Reload_ and _Saiyuki Reload Blast_.
> 
> Thanks to Akira 17 for beta and Rosaleendhu for help with a sentence I was finding particularly problematic.

The last youkai hit the dirt, but Sanzo didn’t lower his gun until he was sure the man was dead. Bitter experience--basically his whole life--had taught him to be wary. 

Where did these armies of attacking youkai keep coming from when this area had almost no villages? In the absence of villages to get rooms to sleep in and new supplies from, Sanzo’s group had been forced to camp out and hunt and forage for food, further delaying their journey, for a few weeks now, leaving them bony and weaker from hunger and crankier from getting less sleep. Dirtier too. Altogether it made them all feel more wretched. 

“Shit, Hakkai,” Gojyo said as he raced to Hakkai’s side and put an arm around his tensed shoulders. “We’re all good, just fine, and it’s _done_.” Sanzo didn’t know if it was bravery or stupidity that made Gojyo touch Hakkai when Hakkai was nearing a berserker state. Sanzo brought his gun back up.

It worked again though. Hakkai calmed down and became more himself as he softly replied, “Gojyo? But your face....”

“It’s just a scratch. Head wounds bleed a lot, you know that. I’m fine and still handsome, and we killed the hell out of everybody so it’s over now.”

Although Sanzo knew it was self-defense and had to be done, when looking at the piles of corpses around him he wondered what his team’s body count was over the years they’d traveled. He’d lost count long ago, and if he hadn’t used a gun and avoided getting most of the blood on him he might have become a youkai himself by now. Which might not be that bad if his group got some limiters on him and stopped him from going berserk, since he could _use_ increased speed, strength, and endurance, plus he wouldn’t mind having the trump card of taking the limiters off in a _really_ tight situation. Youkai had been Sanzos before. 

A lot of the youkai they faced now might not have been violent if not for the Minus Wave, making them victims. 

As his party got closer to the Minus Wave’s source, they might go berserk themselves and he might have to kill them too. 

Hakkai leaned into Gojyo, who got a soppy look on his face. Sanzo would tell them to just kiss already if it wouldn’t increase Gojyo’s already numerous and disgusting public displays of affection and if he hadn’t been certain that Gojyo would tell him to do the same with his monkey, which Sanzo would not. 

Goku already took up far too much space in Sanzo’s head and tiny, dark heart and that had been enough to make him lose his mind when Goku had been shot and nearly died. He couldn’t handle more. Besides, since he’d returned to the group he had Goku within arm’s reach constantly every day and they sometimes shared a bed even if they didn’t do it in the way Gojyo would mean. He had Goku--and the other two idiots--around him all the time, and it smothered him. Yeah, he’d missed them sometimes when he’d been away and Ukoku had shown him that he needed them (at least for some things), a bitter pill, but it was _too much_ having them around all the time now, famine then glutting feast. He needed space for himself, but he wouldn’t get it until they finished the mission. 

Knowing that he might have to kill them someday soon--that he’d directly promised Goku he would if Goku thoroughly lost himself--didn’t make him any more eager to lock lips, get sweaty, and be even more intimate with the monkey either. 

Hakkai and especially Gojyo probably would enjoy a more intimate relationship if they finally figured out that they’d been in love with each other for years already, but nobody made it Sanzo’s job to tell them. Even though watching it annoyed him, he’d let them figure it out for themselves.

“Sanzo! One of them got you!” Goku said as he pointed at Sanzo’s arm, directing Sanzo’s attention to claw marks that had gone through his left sleeve. 

Sanzo hadn’t noticed it before, but his arm stung a little now. “It must have been that guy who somehow made it through. I pistol-whipped him away then shot him. I think his claws got more sleeve than actual arm though.”

“Still have Hakkai check it out. You’ve been poisoned that way before.”

True. And Hakkai already fussed over the cut on Gojyo’s face and would be happy to inspect Sanzo’s scratches, while getting to play healer and mother hen would bring him further back to himself. 

“Man, it’s not like you to be so lost in space during and after a fight, Cherry-chan,” Gojyo said.

“It’s nothing a few good meals and a few good nights of sleep wouldn’t fix,” Sanzo replied. It wouldn’t do them any good to know how much he worried over them.

 

### End


End file.
